PORTLAND — Voters approved the $105 million fiscal year 2018 city school budget by a 3,140 to 890 vote Tuesday. Voters also approved a second question by 3,406 to 656, allowing any additional state aid above what was budgeted to be used to fund programs and operations, as reserve funding, or to go for property tax […]

PORTLAND — Bayside Anchor was touted as a model of mixed-income, mixed-use housing at a grand opening June 7. The 45-unit, four-story building at the corner of Boyd and East Oxford streets has 36 units of low-income housing and the new home of the Portland Community Policing Station. “It is very much a blessing, I can’t […]

PORTLAND — Long-time Deering High School Principal Ira Waltz is retiring at the end of the school year, the Portland Public Schools announced Tuesday. “I am sad to see Ira go, but I respect his decision,” Superintendent of Schools Xavier Botana said in a press release. “As with everything that Ira has done, his decision […]

PORTLAND — Getting the bugs out will be a big topic for the City Council Sustainability & Transportation Committee this summer. The committee will begin to consider how to regulate pesticide use in a meeting on June 21 at 5:30 p.m. in City Hall. The panel, led by Councilor Spencer Thibodeau, includes Councilors Belinda Ray and Jill […]

PORTLAND — Local attorney Jerrol Crouter received this year’s Equal Justice Hero Award from Maine Equal Justice Partners for demonstrating “an unwavering commitment to equity and justice.”  Crouter is a partner at the Drummond Woodsum law firm, was one of the founding members of Maine Equal Justice Partners and for the past 20 years has […]

PORTLAND — Local attorney Jerrol Crouter received this year’s Equal Justice Hero Award from Maine Equal Justice Partners for demonstrating “an unwavering commitment to equity and justice.”  Crouter is a partner at the Drummond Woodsum law firm, was one of the founding members of Maine Equal Justice Partners and for the past 20 years has […]

PORTLAND — Filling the city with sound is the goal of the annual Make Music Portland festival, which will have its fifth anniversary next week. Held every year on the summer solstice, musicians – ranging from full-fledged bands to soloists – will display their talent at a variety of both public and private locations around […]

PORTLAND — Walking the halls of their former school Saturday, many Hall Elementary alumni said not much had changed – including how the school smelled. “It smells just the same,” many said as they strolled the building for probably the last time. The Alumni Open House held June 10 gave attendees a chance to reminisce, while […]

PORTLAND — Tak Sato wants Japanese buckwheat to take the country by storm, with the whirlwind starting on an Aroostook County farm. “American people need this food; it is very good for the body,” Sato said June 7 at his Yosaku restaurant on Danforth Street. Classified as a fruit seed, the flour from gluten-free buckwheat is the […]